Is Trump a little crazy? We can only hope

Sometimes, being a little bit crazy is what separates the great leaders from the rest. But what happens when someone is more than just a little nuts?

It has probably been a while since you gave much thought to William Lyon Mackenzie King’s mental stability — or anything else about Canada’s longest-serving prime minister.

For one thing, his day in the political sun ended a long time ago, in 1948 to be exact. Still, he lasted forever in a profession not known for longevity, nearly 22 years.

Maybe it was his political savvy, his shrewd powers of compromise, or just that the alternatives to the sitting PM (as they are today) might have been awful, or, at least, unknown. It could even have been that Canadians were happy with King’s legendary ambivalence and dullness.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t change the fact that this Canadian PM worshipped, and regularly talked to, his deceased mother; to William Gladstone; to Wilfrid Laurier, and a number of other famous stiffs. He also saw harbingers of the future in the formations of his shaving cream, and the pattern of tea-leaves in the bottom of his cup, as King biographers have noted.

Before going to work King would have a good chat with his dog. He enjoyed nothing better than a spooky table-tapping that could raise the dead. For King, a seance beat the pants off a cabinet meeting, though he was a master of the latter.

After buying a bay-window from a house that was being demolished in Ottawa, King consulted his deceased mother on where it should be placed in his country estate. Not that his was a case of the Oedipus Complex. This was also a PM well known to be susceptible to the charms of the ladies of the night. Did I mention he also wanted his diaries, which contained all of this information, burned?

Suddenly, the mental stability of politicians is hot news again. In the wake of a new book by Michael Wolff about the Trump White House, American journalism is ablaze with speculation that Trump’s personal elevator no longer gets to the penthouse.

Trump’s response was the usual; a kick in the meat pies for his detractors, journalist Michael Wolff, and his White House snitch, “Sloppy Steve” Bannon, who is now in full-repentance mode. For good measure, the President declared himself a remarkably stable genius — an unfortunate choice of words for a man trying to prove his sanity.

More words were to come. “Everything I’ve done is 100 per cent proper. That is what I do, is I do things proper,” he told reporters at a Camp David press conference.

Nor did it help his case that just days before Fire and Fury fell on his presidency in the form of Wolff’s book, Trump traded tweets with Kim Jong-un about the size of his nuclear button.

Trump’s, of course, was much bigger, unlike any button the world has ever seen. You know, like the size of the crowds that showed up for his inauguration — provided you subtract all those fraudulent attendees at Obama’s swearing-in back in 2009.

So let’s sum it up. Trump is a liar (nearly 2,000 lies verified in the first 347 days of his presidency), a alleged possible money launderer, an alleged obstructor of justice, an alleged harasser of women, and a man, who if not a racist himself, makes racists happy with what he says and does. One would think that adding mental illness to that list would be the coup de grace for a president who is all the rage with 35 per cent of Americans.

Not so fast.

There may be a positive link between leadership and madness, or at least that is the thesis of the doctor who runs the Moods Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Centre in Boston.

Dr. Nassir Ghaemi created quite a stir in 2011 with his book “A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness.” Whatever you may think of his theory, Ghaemi’s book made the New York Times Bestseller List and he is still a hot item on the speaker’s tour. In his book, the academic psychiatrist argues that leadership and mental illness often go hand-in-hand. One case he cites is the iconic Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman.

Ghaemi argues that Sherman was bi-polar. The Cincinnati Chronicle was less clinical at the time. In its headline back in 1861, when Sherman was relieved of his Union Army command in Kentucky, it wrote: “General William T. Sherman Insane.”

Sherman’s reaction to the charge that he had gone “stark mad” is worth noting. “In these times,” he said, “it is hard to say who are sane and who are insane.”

Sherman went on to reclaim his commission, devastate the South with his “scorched earth” policy during the Civil War, and to decimate Atlanta.

Ghaemi’s conclusion? Mania and depression make for good crisis leadership. In times of crisis, we are better off being led by mentally ill leaders than by mentally normal ones.

Ghaemi points out that a lot of leaders, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr., suffered from some form of mental illness.

Mahatma Gandhi and King both tried to commit suicide during their adolescence, and both suffered from severe bouts of depression in later life. Winston Churchill’s legendary depression was even given a name: “black dog.” While the “normal” Neville Chamberlain did not see the threat of Hitler, the man with the psychiatric issues did.

And then there is the case of John F. Kennedy. Ghaemi was the first psychiatrist to go through Kennedy’s medical records, looking for explanations of his hyper-sexuality and high energy. What he found was that the 35th president suffered from mild manic symptoms all the time.

It is a condition known in psychiatry as hyperthymic temperament. Steroids made Kennedy’s condition worse. Records uncovered by Ghaemi show that the Kennedy was even treated for depression with a neuroleptic, or anti-psychotic, while he was in the White House.

As far as we know, President Trump is being treated with nothing more powerful than cheeseburgers and diet soda while he watches TV in the Oval Office. The sort of stuff you would expect a guy to eat who doesn’t read and doesn’t listen.

Still, Washington’s “very stable genius” should pore over Prof. Ghaemi’s theories on mental illness and leadership very carefully before taking comfort in A First Rate Madness. After all, the doctor himself was careful.

“I think the idea of a ‘No Drama Obama,’ of this very average, stable, healthy person, is a reflection…. of the idea that if there’s any mental abnormality, it must be harmful. And in fact, if he has a little bit of drama to him, it might be quite helpful.”

The key words, Mr. President, are “a little.” Then again, when you are right 100 per cent of the time, who needs a shrink to validate your madness?

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9 comments on “Is Trump a little crazy? We can only hope”

Not sure I understand what the point of this article is. Is it “let’s hope that Trump is a little bit crazy, because some of the world’s best leaders have been a bit crazy [even though there is no evidence to suggest that Trump is in any other way comparable to any of these great leaders]?”

I don’t know Michael. You’re kind of giving Trump a pass here. Some of his rabid right wing followers may interpret your article as an endorsement of the effectiveness of his insanity. It is true that insane people can wield a lot of power. Serial killers have a lot of power over their victims – that’s the whole point. Most people are not blatantly mentally unbalanced but according to some authorities, about 25% of us are psychopathic to some degree. It’s on a sliding scale with serial killers and Hitler at 100%. They don’t care what anyone else thinks because they believe they are never wrong. You probably know some people who think they know everything. They may be successful in business because they lie, cheat, deceive and manipulate everything to their advantage. Destroying other people’s lives comes with the territory. They could care less. If something is perceived to be in their way to growing their power, it gets destroyed. Now Trump isn’t genocidal like Hitler – yet. But he is clearly a psychopath. Every well balanced observer of his behaviour, if they understand psychopothy, can see that. I’d peg Trump in the 90% range at this point – and rising. All totalitarians, authoritarians, dictators and despots are psychopaths. Now scratch the surface of conservatism and what do you find – fascism – the ideology of psychopaths. Does anyone really doubt that the racist scapegoating infecting right wing conservative fascists is anything but an attempt to get rid of percieved obstacles in their quest for power? It can safely be said that while all conservatives may not be psychopathic, all psychopaths are conservatives. that Trump is insane by any credible measure and the danger to humanity is obvious.

Author

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His nine books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry and three of his books have been made into movies. His book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, was a number one best-seller.